1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a crown lock mechanism-installed timepiece.
2. Description of Related Art
A timepiece is known which includes a crown pipe connected to a winding stem so as to be movable in an axial direction, a crown attached to the crown pipe, and an elastic member interposed between the winding stem and the crown. A biasing force of the elastic member is applied to the winding stem and the crown, thereby suppressing rattling of the crown.
When the timepiece is switched to a time correction mode, the crown unscrewed and decoupled (disengaged) from a screw portion of the winding stem pipe is pulled out to a time correction position. On the other hand, when the crown is held in a normal hand operation mode, the crown is pushed so that the winding stem is switched to the normal hand operation mode by using the biasing force of the elastic member.
Furthermore, a so-called lock mechanism for preventing a malfunction of the crown is known.
This lock mechanism regulates the crown so as not to be further pushed by screwing and coupling the crown to the screw portion of the winding stem pipe, thereby preventing the malfunction of the crown (for example, refer to JP-A-8-248148 (Patent Reference 1)).
However, when the crown is locked, the screw portion of the winding stem pipe needs to interlock with the crown by pushing the crown against the biasing force of the elastic member. Furthermore, the crown needs to be screwed and coupled to the screw portion of the winding stem pipe while a pushing force is applied to the crown.
Here, when the winding stem is switched from a correction state to the normal hand operation mode, it is necessary to operate the corrector lever by transmitting the pushing force of the crown to the winding stem via the elastic member. Here, if an elastic force of the elastic member is weak, the pushing force of the crown is not sufficiently transmitted to the corrector lever. Accordingly, the biasing force of the elastic member is secured so as to be relatively strong. Therefore, the crown needs to be screwed and coupled to the screw portion of the winding stem pipe while the strong pushing force is applied to the crown. From this point of view, there is room for improvement in operability.